We headed west for a few days to do some mountain biking and visiting with friends. We loaded up the bikes and headed first to Paonia, CO. En route we stopped in a tiny little town called Marble (population 105).
According to Wikipedia: The town is noted as the location of a historic Yule Marble quarry along the mountains that began operations in the late 19th century, and from which the town draws its name. The marble of the quarry is considered to be of exceptional quality and has been used for the Tomb of the Unknowns, as well as for parts of the Lincoln Memorial and civic buildings in San Francisco. It was also used for the construction of the Equitable Building, a historically important early skyscraper in New York City.
After enjoying a drink on the porch of the store, we headed to our destination for the evening: Paonia, Colorado. This is Naomi's home town (she did the flowers at our wedding). There we met her and Jeremy W. for a delicious dinner and conversation.
Dinner was fantastic, conversation was a riot (especially Jeremy's imitations - we are still laughing) and Paonia is awesome. Dave is trying to figure out how we can live in Paonia and earn a living!
The following morning, we headed to Crested Butte for some mountain bike riding. Dave selected and easy/intermediate trail which was pretty fun. I wiped out a few times (my least favorite being the attempted impaling of myself using the handle bars on a tump over. Grrrr). Still, it was a beautiful area and my bike really is terrific. While I ended up a bit beat up, it wasn't from the rattling of my brain in my skull, but rather falling over. Repeatedly. Doh.
After this trail, Dave took off for a gnar ride. This advanced ride turned out to be quite fun for him. During this time, I sat in a coffee shop and enjoyed the area. Crested Butte doesn't look like other big-name ski resort towns in Colorado. It's quite vast and homes sit on many acres. Dave is trying to figure out how we can live in Paonia and earn a living!
After dinner in Crested Butte, we drove to nearby Almont to stay in the Almont Resort. The cabins were fun and right on the Taylor River where it meets the East River to become the mighty Gunnison River. We enjoyed dinner and a nice before turning in. We slept with the windows open so we could hear the river rushing by all night. We must have slept well because neither of us heard the seeming large bear turning over a trash dumpster (the kind a big truck empties) very near our cabin. It was an impressive feat and made it clear that the bear was not only hungry, but also angry!
Our original plan the next morning was to mountain bike ride near Almont. However, we decided to drive aways and ride to a tiny town called Tin Cup. This plan was also abandoned because of the rapidly deteriorating weather.
It was cold! And raining. And we were happy that we weren't on our bikes or on the original road ride tour we had planned. We'd have been totally hypothermic.
Instead, we just did some sight-seeing including checking out the climbing at Taylor Canyon, and looking at a nice overlook at the Taylor Park Reservoir.
We kept cruising spending a little time in Buena Vista, Co. It was Sunday and it because clear that Buena Vista is closed on Sunday. We filled up with gas an headed home.
As always, it was great to come home!
No comments:
Post a Comment